See, this is why we need more women talking out in tech.
We’re just sitting here talking about how we’d like women in technology to be more visible, and ways that we can make this happen and suddenly Dave Winer, Ben Barren and Richard McManus are organising not just one but *two* more conferences!
Just what the world needs. :)
Seriously, whilst I think it would be great to have a web2/blogher doubleheader conference in Australia (it would be great to not travel a million miles to see someone as ‘famous’ as Dave speak) and I would love the opportunity to see and meet more chicks who blog, particularly those who blog about web2, let’s not get distracted.
Fact is, we don’t know where most of these women are and they’re probably not going to write a proposal to speak at your conference. And *that* is the nub of the problem.
Agree? Disagree?
Get down here to my earlier post and join in the discussion.
Postscript:
For those of you who nick over to Ben’s blog to read his post (and yes, I agree, Sophie you definitely need a blog). Check out this intriguing phrase in context and let me know what you think it means:
the potential ovatory auditionary experience
I’m not sure even Ben know’s exactly what it means, but I find it as disturbing (conceptually) as it is beautiful (linguistically).
Technorati Tags: web+2.0, women, blogging
Image Credit: The amazinging prolific Hugh McLeod at GapingVoid
Maybe it’s time for you to start a conference of your own? :)
There is a conference in the US.. Maybe you should do an AU one? :)
http://www.blogher.org/
Podcasts of BlogHer’05 here..
http://www.itconversations.com/series/blogher05.html
….which I see you have already linked to in your previous post – Doh!
yes, not only that but the lovely Elisa Camahort of Blogher has stopped by and joined in the discussion. An AU Blogher is certainly an interesting idea… :)
So great to see this conversation happening.
Seriously, whilst I think it would be great to have a web2/blogher doubleheader conference in Australia (it would be great to not travel a million miles to see someone as ‘famous’ as Dave speak) and I would love the opportunity to see and meet more chicks who blog, particularly those who blog about web2, let’s not get distracted.
Just to let everyone know, last year with WE05, we held a conference where you couldn’t move without hitting up against great inspirational and practical content a lot of which was under the umbrella of Web 2.0:
* Jeffrey Veen on Desiging the Next Generation of Web Apps (also presented as a full day workshop), as well as Designing the Complete User Experience
* Tantek Celik on Microformats and the Elements of Meaningful XHTML
* Tim Lucas on Understanding AJAX
as well as Molly Holzschlag’s wonderful keynote presentation which drew a line under all that has gone before and let us in on The State of the Web 2005.
It was an incredible couple of days for everyone who was there. What I found particularly rewarding was the passion with which attendees went back to their workplaces, many of them large and conservative institutions, filled with enthusiasm to take the necessary baby steps to embrace all that is good about Web2.0, while dismissing the hype.
Previous to WE05, in March 2005 I had spoken on the first SXSW panel on “Where are all the women?”, an experience which galvansied me to ensure as strong a presence as possible of women on stage at WE05, to match what had already been a strong contingent in our audience at WE04. I’m very proud to say that the first three faces people saw at WE05 were in fact women: myself, Lea who gave the Welcome to Country and Molly. Later we also saw great presentations by Kelly Goto and Lisa Herrod.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that I would be extremely keen to align with any BlogHer conference held here in Australia. We’re going to be holding our conference, along with a number of workshops, and under a new name, on Septmeber 26-29th this year here in Sydney. Please do feel free to get in touch if you’d like to talk about working together. A lot of the ideas expressed here and in the related post at your blog are genuinely exciting.
hey Maxine.
thanks for stopping by… you’re exactly the voice of reason/experience we need to have around for this conversation!
Web Essentials last year looked fantastic… I was dying to go but used up my conference brownie points seeing Jessie James Garrett when he was in town (and, strangely, people/managers had a perception that WE was for techies, not user experience people like myself… go figure).
there are a few ideas being thrown around in various places at the moment… if anything starts coming together (and hopefully it will), I’ll *definitely* make sure you’re invited to get involved!
Strangely enough I was told it was one for the Designers and Producers… :)
hrm…. that sounds like a budget related conspiracy, doesn’t it….
Maxine, that’s a terrific line-up – how will you top it for WE06?
I’ve just sent an email off to the info contact – will the website be up soon?
Hey Genevieve. At the risk of taking over Leisa’s post (please forgive!), I just wanted to get in touch as I’m afraid you will get an auto reply by emailing me at Web Essentials. We have in fact had a name change this year:
http://www.webdirections.org.
Hard to say how we’ll top last year :-) but believe me we are working on it right now. Expect an announcement first week of May.
np Maxine, go for it :)
Looking forward to seeing the lineup!